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Green Party president, Peter Sinkamba has predicted that food insecurity may linger for ‘two to three years’ for lack of proper planning and low crop production for the 2022/2023 farming season.
According to Sinkamba in a statement issued on Saturday in Kitwe, government, through the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) will buy 250,000 metric tonnes of maize, 1,000 metric tonnes of Paddy Rice and 50,000 metric tonnes of Soya Beans.
He said in effect, the total storage capacity for the grains to be procured will only be 300,000 metric tonnes of the 1.1 million metric tonnes that is serviceable.
“Currently Zambia has 458 units of storage facilities whose storage capacity is 2 million metric tonnes of which only 1.1 million is serviceable and at the moment, the storage facilities are literally empty because the 168,000 metric tonnes in storage facility is already committed or sold,” Sinkamba said.
He said the national output is expected to be less than the 2021/2022 output of 3 million metric tonnes, most likely 2.5 million metric tonnes and the current national consumption for both domestic and industrial uses is about 3 million metric tonnes.
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“This implies that the country is likely to have a deficit of 500,000 metric tonnes of maize to meet the national domestic and industrial consumption,” Sinkamba said.
He said the implication of this is that the country will remain staple food insecure for the next two to three years because government uses FRA maize stocks to stabilize mealie meal prices.
Sinkamba further said this entails that the food security objectives of FRA under the UPND government have now become more symbolic than practical.
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